By the way, it's not OK to spy on Americans, but it is fine to invade the privacy of everyone else on the planet? Hmm. As a non-American, I can't say I agree.
Not to worry, since one's affiliation online is not obvious, they are apparently allowed to assume that their target is non-American by default. Americans don't really have more privacy than you do.
Anyone who thinks anything Obama says (or does) will result in your privacy being respected and warrantless surveillance ended is delusional.
Ah, if only there were some other branches of the government that were tasked with supervising and controlling the executive branch. Too bad we don't have any.
As a result thier snooping will be available not only to US government, but to any other entity that would bother to hack their way into under-managed IT system run by remaining 10% of overworked sysadmins.
But other entities will keep hacking quiet, so there will be no embarrassing revelations. And the sysadmins will be too tired to blow a whistle like Snowden has.
The law of headlines says the answer is always "no".
Someone has to herd cats (er... developers). You may prefer not to go into management, but someone does need to do it. Even if some developers think that project can complete itself organically with no managerial coordination.
"America" is not a person. Did you mean to say Obama?
When Obama was elected, he made very different promises, including several very emphatic speeches about the need for protecting whistle-blowers. One could argue it was part of the reason he got elected...
Politicians should sign their platform as a contract and be held criminally liable when they deviate from non-ambiguous promises as soon as they actually are elected.
for giving Russia, with all their human rights problems like Pussy Riot, the moral high ground here.
The irony is palpable!
"given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months"
I guess there is a lack of progress on both sides....
the mighty United States of America has been reduced to feeling "terror" from "twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years."
At least twentysomethings are a lot scarier than (possible) 3oz+ bottles. Just observed two very serious TSA agents gather around a non-standard bottle with foreign lettering and discussing in detail whether it does or does not exceed the 3oz allowance. They may have been looking for a translator, as I left security.
We need a law that says "Hire Americans first" with some stiff penalties
We already have that law -- the H1B outsourcing process requires that "no qualified candidate is available locally". Their paperwork makes that claim somewhere, I am sure.
The stiff penalty part is missing. Apparently there is no funding for enforcing that particular part of the outsourcing mechanism.
Without drug users, who will fill the private prisons?
Right there. "private prisons"!
How can such an abomination exist? Being private, they sign contracts with states that guarantee X% utilization (90 or 95 last I heard).
Are they going to outsource courts/judges next? Have they already?
The mega corporations are buying up or pushing out of business all the small businesses.
There must be other reasons in play here. Amazon and such are not big on offering cheap/refurbished equipment, which is what Geeks.com sold a lot of (to me, anyway)
Sure, a "low-level outside contractor" has been given access to a database which is of critical importance to national security. As well, this fictional contractor also has the keys to Fort Knox and sleeps in the President's bed at the White House. Or, perhaps, since there's no evidence any of this has actually happened
I meant Snowden. The fact that Bolivian president got grounded on a suspicion that he is smuggling Snowden, is quite a bit of evidence that Snowden is not simply lying.
I don't know what exactly is true or isn't, but the manhunt is a rather blatant piece of evidence that cannot be ignored.
If it was100%, then pray tell how have we managed to catch any terrorists?
I have no evidence that we have. There is plenty of anti-terrorism activity and vague announcement of hundreds of terror plots having been stopped. Some, mostly unidentified people were also killed by drones, but I am not aware of any "caught terrorists"
I know you are not a troll, but are you just assuming that we have caught dozens of terrorists?
I'd be interested in hearing about that 1 out of 1,000,000 where they caught someone credible, who could have succeeded.
Yeah... that big story this past April in Boston... something about a bomb... asleep the whole month?
You are taking my sentence out of context. Interested in 1/1,000,000 where surveillance could prevent the terrorist act. Yes, terrorist acts happen (rarely), and law enforcement reacts to them just as they would in previous, less-insane, decades.
However, they were neither able to prevent the act, nor have they used the years and years of indiscriminately stored data.
Tell me, when you go fishing in a lake, do you catch all the fish?
If I bought a fancy lake-scanning sonar, I would expect it to improve my odds. If it didn't, the sonar is a failure.
Look, I am not arguing against hunting terrorists. I am saying that the new monitoring activities do not have any demonstrable benefit (that I am aware of).
They're going to track you down personally and inform you of the results of any investigation that results in finding a terrorist straight away! The fact that they didn't is proof that no terrorists have ever been found.
No, it's the fact that they haven't advertised one credible terrorist plot that was foiled, means they've got nothing. Yes, many cases surely must be classified, but I'd settle for one case.
A couple of court cases where most of planning and all of financing was done by the law enforcement plant does not count. I am interested in credible cases which were likely to succeed on their own.
If it were me, I wouldn't be making a press release on every terrorist I caught...
I don't want all of them, but I'd like one credible case. The vague assertion that government stopped between 50 and 200 terrorist plots (or some other random numbers) just doesn't do it.
I'd even settle for an independent secret panel review that will report on success rate with some overall statistics. I get my performance reviewed often to remain employed...
Yes, they are not obliged to report on everything, but total secrecy does not give them an assumption of high competence.
2/ they are arresting terrorist bombers at a rate of 1 a week
For some reason, I think that a terrorist bomber will not answer the door in this situation. Since this is a "friendly" visit, I assume they have no warrant and would need to come back later.
The NSA gathers up the data, forwards it to a team of analysts, and, seeing this kind of thing every day, make an informed and reasoned decision to either forward it up the chain, or bin it.
Your cute and idealistic assessment is at odds with (at least) the fact that the gathered NSA data was dumped into a huge database where a low-level outside contractor could access all of it. I'd feel better if the data went to a team of professional analysts and not into an easily abusable database which may or may not be studied by analysts.
There have only been a few dozen acts of bona fide terrorism in the past year or so, and if the tin foil hat crowd is right, the NSA is monitoring everyone pervasively, so it's more like 999,999 times out of a 1,000,000.
It is more likely to be nothing 1,000,000 out of 1,000,000 times. A "terrorist" that relies on google and pressure cookers to plan their act is a pathetic basement dweller that lacks the resources to actually do anything. I'd be interested in hearing about that 1 out of 1,000,000 where they caught someone credible, who could have succeeded. And (in TFA case) that same person would have to lack the capacity to not answer the door and move to another city after a visit from government agents.
Boston bombing... The professionals, meanwhile, correctly identified them hours later, and then took them down without any innocent people getting caught in the cross fire.
However, they were neither able to prevent the act, nor have they used the years and years of indiscriminately stored data. They used current recordings from volunteers, I believe. So the result of the Boston bombing would have been the same without preventative surveillance.
They are competent, but NSA's total surveillance has not improved their ability to do their job.
If the victims of government failure were properly compensated every time, I think we would find that these commonplace "mistakes" would quickly become the exception rather than the rule.
Hardly.
Who do you think covers such pay-off? The guy/gal who made the mistake or the taxpayer? (hint: it's the taxpayer)
If people responsible were required so much as to come over and apologize to the victims, then you might see a reduction in mistaken visits. But a compensation (assuming you mean money) only causes the agency's budget to increase, so there will be no disincentive.
The OS has a set of permissions available for apps (get location data, use camera, access internet, etc.)
It'd be nice if I could reject access selectively and try to install the app anyway
I'd also like a button that sends an email to developers "What were you thinking when you designed this?"
My favorite would have to be "permission to take camera fotos without user knowledge or permission". Even if an app has legitimate use for it, I'd like to think this is not mandatory for operation.
Slashdot Mirror
Obama is part of the abuse.
Part of the abuse? I don't think so.
At this point, Obama appears to be the primary force behind the abuse. He's the one with the "kill list", too.
Agreed. The problem is, Obama's idea of transparent is to attack Lavabit.
In a such transparent way, that the owner of Lavabit is apparently not allowed to say what happened, either.
Less than 48 hours ago with Jay Leno he said, and repeated: "We don't have a domestic spying program."
The program is still classified, so it does not exist. Just like drones bombing several countries do not really exist.
and the domestic spying program has safeguards to help keep it from being abused.
It looks like Snowden was the only safeguard NSA had.
By the way, it's not OK to spy on Americans, but it is fine to invade the privacy of everyone else on the planet? Hmm. As a non-American, I can't say I agree.
Not to worry, since one's affiliation online is not obvious, they are apparently allowed to assume that their target is non-American by default. Americans don't really have more privacy than you do.
Anyone who thinks anything Obama says (or does) will result in your privacy being respected and warrantless surveillance ended is delusional.
Ah, if only there were some other branches of the government that were tasked with supervising and controlling the executive branch. Too bad we don't have any.
Except that we all know he's actually talking about the PEOPLE being made more transparent, NOT the Government.
Either that, or he's operating on different definition of transparency. The secret kind of transparency.
Just like "imminent" threat means "any/vague" threat according to the drone memo.
Their job will include figuring out how to maintain the public's trust and prevent abuse
Isn't it a little late for that?
Short of stopping indiscriminate surveillance, but that does not seem to be in the cards.
As a result thier snooping will be available not only to US government, but to any other entity that would bother to hack their way into under-managed IT system run by remaining 10% of overworked sysadmins.
But other entities will keep hacking quiet, so there will be no embarrassing revelations. And the sysadmins will be too tired to blow a whistle like Snowden has.
It's a win-win for NSA.
Every time they open their mouths they make the PS4 look better.
Are you saying that they should improve the XBox or that they should just shut up for now?
PS4 will be just as bad, but users will find out only after they have bought the console.
Is Development Leadership Overvalued?
The law of headlines says the answer is always "no".
Someone has to herd cats (er... developers). You may prefer not to go into management, but someone does need to do it. Even if some developers think that project can complete itself organically with no managerial coordination.
He of the "Nobel Peace Prize for nothing more than saying he'd be interested in talking"
Oh, no!
Nobel Peace Prize for nothing more than being not Bush
US wouldn't grant asylum to someone leaving Russia under similar circumstances and call it defending freedom and liberty
I do not disagree with you, but Russia probably wouldn't be embarrassed by someone like Snowden coming forward. They don't pretend to be "free".
Own up to your mistakes, America.
"America" is not a person. Did you mean to say Obama?
When Obama was elected, he made very different promises, including several very emphatic speeches about the need for protecting whistle-blowers. One could argue it was part of the reason he got elected...
Politicians should sign their platform as a contract and be held criminally liable when they deviate from non-ambiguous promises as soon as they actually are elected.
until we get back the home of the free and the land of the brave.
The what now?
The slogan that many Americans instinctively trot out when they want to reassure themselves of being #1.
If you stop and think about the slogans... you probably hate our freedoms.
for giving Russia, with all their human rights problems like Pussy Riot, the moral high ground here.
The irony is palpable!
"given our lack of progress on issues such as missile defense and arms control, trade and commercial relations, global security issues, and human rights and civil society in the last twelve months"
I guess there is a lack of progress on both sides....
the mighty United States of America has been reduced to feeling "terror" from "twentysomethings who haven't talked to the opposite sex in five or six years."
At least twentysomethings are a lot scarier than (possible) 3oz+ bottles. Just observed two very serious TSA agents gather around a non-standard bottle with foreign lettering and discussing in detail whether it does or does not exceed the 3oz allowance. They may have been looking for a translator, as I left security.
We need a law that says "Hire Americans first" with some stiff penalties
We already have that law -- the H1B outsourcing process requires that "no qualified candidate is available locally". Their paperwork makes that claim somewhere, I am sure.
The stiff penalty part is missing. Apparently there is no funding for enforcing that particular part of the outsourcing mechanism.
Without drug users, who will fill the private prisons?
Right there. "private prisons"!
How can such an abomination exist? Being private, they sign contracts with states that guarantee X% utilization (90 or 95 last I heard).
Are they going to outsource courts/judges next? Have they already?
The mega corporations are buying up or pushing out of business all the small businesses.
There must be other reasons in play here. Amazon and such are not big on offering cheap/refurbished equipment, which is what Geeks.com sold a lot of (to me, anyway)
Sure, a "low-level outside contractor" has been given access to a database which is of critical importance to national security. As well, this fictional contractor also has the keys to Fort Knox and sleeps in the President's bed at the White House. Or, perhaps, since there's no evidence any of this has actually happened
I meant Snowden. The fact that Bolivian president got grounded on a suspicion that he is smuggling Snowden, is quite a bit of evidence that Snowden is not simply lying.
I don't know what exactly is true or isn't, but the manhunt is a rather blatant piece of evidence that cannot be ignored.
If it was100%, then pray tell how have we managed to catch any terrorists?
I have no evidence that we have. There is plenty of anti-terrorism activity and vague announcement of hundreds of terror plots having been stopped. Some, mostly unidentified people were also killed by drones, but I am not aware of any "caught terrorists"
I know you are not a troll, but are you just assuming that we have caught dozens of terrorists?
I'd be interested in hearing about that 1 out of 1,000,000 where they caught someone credible, who could have succeeded.
Yeah... that big story this past April in Boston... something about a bomb... asleep the whole month?
You are taking my sentence out of context. Interested in 1/1,000,000 where surveillance could prevent the terrorist act. Yes, terrorist acts happen (rarely), and law enforcement reacts to them just as they would in previous, less-insane, decades.
However, they were neither able to prevent the act, nor have they used the years and years of indiscriminately stored data.
Tell me, when you go fishing in a lake, do you catch all the fish?
If I bought a fancy lake-scanning sonar, I would expect it to improve my odds. If it didn't, the sonar is a failure.
Look, I am not arguing against hunting terrorists. I am saying that the new monitoring activities do not have any demonstrable benefit (that I am aware of).
They're going to track you down personally and inform you of the results of any investigation that results in finding a terrorist straight away! The fact that they didn't is proof that no terrorists have ever been found.
No, it's the fact that they haven't advertised one credible terrorist plot that was foiled, means they've got nothing. Yes, many cases surely must be classified, but I'd settle for one case.
A couple of court cases where most of planning and all of financing was done by the law enforcement plant does not count. I am interested in credible cases which were likely to succeed on their own.
If it were me, I wouldn't be making a press release on every terrorist I caught...
I don't want all of them, but I'd like one credible case. The vague assertion that government stopped between 50 and 200 terrorist plots (or some other random numbers) just doesn't do it.
I'd even settle for an independent secret panel review that will report on success rate with some overall statistics. I get my performance reviewed often to remain employed...
Yes, they are not obliged to report on everything, but total secrecy does not give them an assumption of high competence.
2/ they are arresting terrorist bombers at a rate of 1 a week
For some reason, I think that a terrorist bomber will not answer the door in this situation.
Since this is a "friendly" visit, I assume they have no warrant and would need to come back later.
The NSA gathers up the data, forwards it to a team of analysts, and, seeing this kind of thing every day, make an informed and reasoned decision to either forward it up the chain, or bin it.
Your cute and idealistic assessment is at odds with (at least) the fact that the gathered NSA data was dumped into a huge database where a low-level outside contractor could access all of it. I'd feel better if the data went to a team of professional analysts and not into an easily abusable database which may or may not be studied by analysts.
There have only been a few dozen acts of bona fide terrorism in the past year or so, and if the tin foil hat crowd is right, the NSA is monitoring everyone pervasively, so it's more like 999,999 times out of a 1,000,000.
It is more likely to be nothing 1,000,000 out of 1,000,000 times. A "terrorist" that relies on google and pressure cookers to plan their act is a pathetic basement dweller that lacks the resources to actually do anything. I'd be interested in hearing about that 1 out of 1,000,000 where they caught someone credible, who could have succeeded. And (in TFA case) that same person would have to lack the capacity to not answer the door and move to another city after a visit from government agents.
Boston bombing ... The professionals, meanwhile, correctly identified them hours later, and then took them down without any innocent people getting caught in the cross fire.
However, they were neither able to prevent the act, nor have they used the years and years of indiscriminately stored data. They used current recordings from volunteers, I believe. So the result of the Boston bombing would have been the same without preventative surveillance.
They are competent, but NSA's total surveillance has not improved their ability to do their job.
If the victims of government failure were properly compensated every time, I think we would find that these commonplace "mistakes" would quickly become the exception rather than the rule.
Hardly.
Who do you think covers such pay-off? The guy/gal who made the mistake or the taxpayer? (hint: it's the taxpayer)
If people responsible were required so much as to come over and apologize to the victims, then you might see a reduction in mistaken visits. But a compensation (assuming you mean money) only causes the agency's budget to increase, so there will be no disincentive.
And what happens when a thief steals a phone and plants it in the bag of an unsuspecting commuter?
Or, even more likely, a representative of the Moscow police force plants a "stolen" phone.
It may be illegal to arrest unsuspecting commuters, but a vile thief (suspect) is fair game for anything. And the magic box will catch him right away.
The OS has a set of permissions available for apps (get location data, use camera, access internet, etc.)
It'd be nice if I could reject access selectively and try to install the app anyway
I'd also like a button that sends an email to developers "What were you thinking when you designed this?"
My favorite would have to be "permission to take camera fotos without user knowledge or permission". Even if an app has legitimate use for it, I'd like to think this is not mandatory for operation.